'US hopes to retain power by sanctioning Iran'

The United States seeks to retain its diminishing power as an empire by imposing new sanctions on Iran, says an American analyst.

Myles Hoenig, a former Green Party candidate for Congress, made the remarks in an interview when asked about new sanctions imposed on Iran by the administration of President Donald Trump.

The US Departments of Treasury and State said Tuesday they were targeting 18 Iranian individuals, groups and networks. The new sanctions freeze any assets the targets may have in the US and prevents Americans from doing business with them.

This came one day after the Trump administration, for a second time, certified Iran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and six other countries, including the US.

Hoenig said, “It seems quite clear that since this administration has no clear-cut idea of how the world works diplomatically and militarily, it can only respond to issues based on who has its ear at the moment and perhaps who is lining the Trump pockets. It does seem that Saudi Arabia is pulling the US strings as easily as it would do to any of its puppets.”

“The US thinks of itself in unipolar power terms but the reality is quickly shifting, and accelerating under Trump. In the past it was a political race between the US and Russia with both their vassal states complying to their whims but now this paradigm of power has altered. The US has dominated when the Soviet Union dissolved but US domination is quickly withering to forces it does not see or understand,” he told Press TV on Tuesday.

“The US is doing all it can now to continue to economically isolate Iran, without even the pretense of it violating international agreements, because it isn’t,” he noted.

“This recent imposition of new sanctions seems to be the dying hopes of an empire to retain what little power it has kept and not realizing how self-destructive its policies are becoming to the continuation of its own empire,” Hoenig stated.

The US said the sanctions meant to curb the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program.

Washington claims Iran’s missile program is in breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed Tehran’s nuclear deal with the P5+1 states.

However, Tehran insists its missile tests do not breach any UN resolutions because they are solely for defense purposes and not designed to carry nuclear warheads.